


Playing It By Ear

by Vellev



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music & Bands, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, BUT THEN IT WASNT, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Language Barrier, M/M, One Shot, Quadrant Confusion, i just wanted to write about music okay, it was a drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vellev/pseuds/Vellev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boy in blue does not like working with others. When he needs to form his music, morph it to whatever disgusting Alternian tune comes his way, he only pushes harder, making whoever else he was working with change their own music, until it became deformed and wrong. And, this new troll, a singer (if you could describe that horrid noise that came from his mouth as a song) that the boy in blue had been been assigned to, this troll was no exception. As ugly, stupid, and gross as he was, even though he didn't speak English and sang like dying animal, he would definitely be no exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing It By Ear

Index and ring fingers trilled final notes, slowly fading out. The acoustics of the hall boomed the delicate sound masterfully, keeping the soft notes familiar and worldly. The stone cold audience seemed to breathe momentarily. It was fearless and perfect, as if a snowflake would melt under the sheer living atmosphere, yet would stay hanging, suspended in air.

The adolescent slid from behind the piano bench, not moving the sleek black piece of furniture at all. He rose and took a soundless bow, his movements awkward and wobbly, seeming to break the entire perfection he showed while on stage. He managed to force a toothy smile at the continued silence of the theatre, and walked out, his limbs moving incorrectly and unskillfully to the audience.

There were other performances after his, a beautiful blonde human girl, wearing a deep long purple dress. She played careful and long notes on a violin. She astounded him, so perfect, to the extent her tone lost its meaning, forgotten in a storm of quick precise notes. She exited, greeted by the same reaction. The girl following her, on a flute, the audience gave the same judgement. That was to be expected though, they were only human. Humans were the lowest on the blood caste, even worse than maroon bloods, with their ever-changing shaded blood. Their performance was a joke, a circus act in a hall of judging eyes. Not much was expected, nothing received.

This was exactly why the boy in blue was so surprised when approached by a troll preceding him in the show. A shorter, probably low blooded, troll taps him on the shoulder. "Your prethenthe ith requethted," he stated, as if this was the most boring experience of his life, which, it could in fact be. 

The boy in blue is taken aback for a moment. English-speaking trolls were rare, especially lowbloods. This one probably got to be invited to parties and performances like this one was (along with his master, of course) because he was a translator, of a sort. The boy in blue tried to hold in giggles from the troll's broken lisping words; it wasn't polite to laugh at those above you. He could even hear the words in his mind, "No one wants to see those teeth."

The troll unfolded a pair of glasses, one lens red, the other shaded blue. Something clicked in the human's mind: this was a psiionic, one of those cool telepathy trolls. It was rare for them to be under the power of another, though—with their powers they often rebelled or backstabbed their masters. What kind of a troll would trust one by their side…? 

The boy in blue nodded, not responding, not willing for those teeth to show. The translator troll turned around, wiping the glasses on his purple overcoat. He led the human to a curtained corner, a small alcove which had been transformed into a private meeting room during the performing hall's latter renovations in the Alternian Age of Development. He straightened his vest, and looked down to see if his bow tie was crooked. Seeing no obvious signs of distress, he opened the curtain of the room, sheet music still tucked neatly under his arm. The clicking noise of Alternian was heard, and he turned around, seeing that the psiionic troll had entered with him, and was speaking to the other in the alcove. The boy in blue looked up, eyes focusing on his higher blooded master. It was a sea dweller, purple hair styled upward as if he or she still floated around in the ocean. He stood, seemingly casually leaning to the side, his arm braced against the stone wall of the tiny space. He held a filled cup in his hand, an alcoholic substance surely in it. The two exchanged words easily, and the boy in blue noticed their snapping tones even above the already harsh and forceful language. 

"ED over here wanth to know who you are," the psiionic stated, his stately manner dropping further. Probably putting on a show for the stupid judgmental audience.  
The boy in blue nodded, and cleared his throat before speaking. "My name is John Egbert, I'm a member of the Crocker music organization. I was—"

"Don't care," the psiionic managed to cut him off, before rasping words toward this "ED" sea dweller. John heard him stumble through a word that sounded somewhat like his name, but morphed and changed, with a strong Alternian accent. The high blooded troll spoke back to him, and the psiionic voiced his words back to John in English. "Thith athhole ith Eridan Ampora, and he'd like for you to play at thome kind of thtupid gala that he'th holding," the psiionic said, sounding even more done with the conversation than before. 

At this, John couldn't help but let out a small laugh. Wow, this yellow blooded guy was translating everything wrong! The look both he and the psiionic got from the sea dweller troll at the laugh was so deadly he quickly quieted himself. "I'd love to, I suppose. You should tell me when it is, and what the pay is, and really arrange all this stuff with the head Crocker and all that, but I'd be alright with it!" John decided to lose any sense of being official, and only received a smirk from the psiionic. 

The translator gave this back to Eridan Ampora, who voiced something that the piisonic translated as "Cool, yeah, all that interesting shit will happen, blah, blah, blah, you're going to be playing with one of the Ampora household's best, and yeah, I should just talk a bit more to cover the rest of the unimportant shit he was saying." And then he added one more word that sounded neither english nor Alternian, with a flourish. John let himself laugh at the tone, and surprisingly, Ampora laughed along. Maybe he made a joke? Who knew.

☭

Decisions were made, payments arranged, and a rehearsal process began. What proved to be a strenuous, difficult, rehearsal process that was in no way worth any payment that the Ampora household could provide.

John disliked working with others. He could talk with other people, easily, yes! He could make friends, relate with others, he could combine his intellectual skills with others to create amazing outcomes! Yet, when another was placed with him musically, he found he often would bend his music to form the need of his partner, changing his mood and style. Of course, he would also force the other to morph their style to his, creating something neither delicate nor beautiful. 

Also, this troll couldn't speak English. 

Okay, that was expected, but one couldn't blame John for hating it, one really couldn't. It was hard! He needed to use hand movements and noises for everything. 

The troll John met on the first day of the rehearsal process was obviously a lowblood. He was short, beyond short, well, for a troll. He stood at about the height of John, maybe an inch or so taller not counting hair. He wore all grey, an odd look that didn't fit him at all, and the purple overcoat that even John was made to wear while playing for the Amporas.

The troll had horrible hands. His fingers were disgusting and chewed, his nails bitten so close to the nub John didn't want to look at them. Probably, to the troll, John was equally disgusting. John often got that from the trolls—apparently acne was some huge social downer—and the trolls preferred dark-skinned humans to lighter ones, as if it reminded the aliens of their own skin tone. His teeth, of course, entirely disgusting, and even as he entered the room, and the troll that was bound to his partner got sight of the protruding pearly whites, did he curl his lip in disgust.

His partner troll did that a lot, curling his lip. As they read through the piece of music together, with no feeling or tone, did he get that. Even as he spoke the flowing Alternian words of the song did he react in an angry way to everything John did. Once John noticed the glares enough that his fingers slid to an incorrect key, creating yet another clashing note, did he remove his fingers from the white and black keys with a "hmph."

"I don't care if you don't know what I'm saying, you've got to stop!" John said definitively, not quite sure what voicing any opinions would do. 

The troll looked at him for a second, then made a growling sound, low and snarling. He snapped words at him, and seeing that John got absolutely none of that, whoops, he motioned irately back at the piano.

John looked at him angrily, shaking his head. He sniffled, putting his hand on his nose, and then made obvious hand movements that they needed to work on this, which basically involved him prodding his fingers at the sheet music. 

The troll glared, and walked to John's side of the piano, slamming a grey finger down on the key. The harsh tinkering sound it produced seem to almost frighten the troll by the way that his shoulders jumped. He tapped the key again, and then pointed to John, directing him to play.

John raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Well, this wasn't going to work.

☭

Their next rehearsal session went only slightly more successfully, since the psiionic translator troll—no, Sollux—was there. He introduced the singer as "Karkat", and, saving any automobile or cat referenced jokes, said that he was one of the rare Alternian singers that could change between their five vocal resonators at will. While humans had four obvious resonators, head, mouth, chest, and mask, troll biology gave them another resonator, which was a mix between the throat and horns. The horns caused the sound coming from their throat to vibrate hugely, creating truthfully one of the ugliest sounds John had ever heard. He didn't understand how trolls could find it musically pleasing, but there were a lot of things he didn't understand about trolls. 

"Karkat says this is stupid," Sollux commented nastily, bringing a stool to the opposite side of the piano that Karkat was standing at.

"You can tell Karkat that he can shove it up his…" John glanced up, playing the piano without looking as he tried to think of his knowledge of Alternian biology.

"Nook?" Sollux offered.

"Yeah, he can shove that up his nook, and to sing the song already."

"He says that you're playing it wrong."

"I'd like him to play it better…," John mumbled, and motioned to Karkat to begin. He's a pianist, not a fucking conductor, god… "Let's try it again."

John brought his fingers down on the keys, the introduction ringing out into the hall. He played it beautifully, silently thanking the Amporas for the amazing workspace. Such great acoustics, even for how stuffy the room was. Half of that stuffiness came from the sniffling and laryngitis voiced singer, but John wasn't saying anything, yet. He tried to keep his underlying anger from the keys, but could hear it oozing out obviously under the notes, making the song sound more like a war march than a delicate, flowing song.

He could actually hear the troll take in a breath, and winced at the loud noise. It seemed he was beginning with his mouth voice, starting the sound out conversationally, like he was speaking. John tapped away on the keys, actually hearing his finger nails snap against the sleek white and black as he pressed down too hard on a chord. No, no, no, it was all wrong, just all wrong! He was singing the correct lyrics, even John could tell that with his small knowledge of written Alternian from his self taught lessons from sheet music. But, this, this was disgusting! All wrong! When Karkat mixed the mouth resonance and the nasal resonance to produce the proper mask, John stopped playing, leaving Karkat holding a note before it flittered out.

"It's not me that's playing it wrong," John lied. But a lie followed by the truth was more truthful, right? "It's you that's singing it wrong!" He barely gave Sollux any time to translate. "You're singing it with the wrong tone," John continued, and lifting the sheet music of his stand, shoved it in front of Karkat's face, jabbing a finger at the lack of a symbol. "I don't know where you got that crescendo there, but it's not in the music—"

"You can read Alternian?" Sollux asked, interrupting his own translation and John's rant.

"Yeah, but only from what I've read in songs." John said, and then turned to Karkat to continue.

"Why the hell do you even need me here then?" Sollux said lazily, not even giving a fuck, and left John pondering the very same thing. He wanted Sollux there, as long as he wasn't left to suffer in the same room alone with Karkat for very long. But, he was taking precious time away from the poor psiionic's supposedly busy life. 

☭

As expected, Sollux was not with them the next rehearsal. This was only the third time they'd met, with only four more scheduled rehearsals until this stupid gala. Four painstaking five hour rehearsals of playing the same goddamn song over and over. Four fucking rehearsals of arguing with this asshole again, and again. Four more precious rehearsals to get their shit together, and play this song as it was meant to be played.

That was just the issue, though. How was it supposed to be played? John didn't know. Alternian music was…weird, to say the least. They treasured clashing notes, and disgusting chords. 

They had a skewed idea of dissonance, favoring the oddest combination of notes. Their music was made up of combinations of minor seconds, major sevenths, augmented fourths, and diminished fifths. Specifically in this song, practically every note was a neutral second.

The collection of paper on the table was filled with John and Karkat's scrawls of hatred. They voiced their opinions of hate towards the piece, toward the music, and toward each other. John couldn't imagine the song ever sounding nice, and especially with someone as gross as Karkat singing it, it was bound to be awful. He hope he still got paid.  
   
At the end of their eleventh round of playing it with no steps in any direction, John stood up and laid the piano cover down. Karkat took his grey pen, and scribbled in messy Alternian, «Where the hell do you think you're going?»

«Anywhere but here.» John writes down quickly, quickly showing it to the troll, and then shoves the paper back into his hands, writing: «We're getting nowhere, Karkat, this is dumb. We'll each work alone and hope it goes well.»

Karkat grabbed the paper from John's hands (if there was a paper cut there, fuck the money, John was leaving) and scribbled in his terrible handwriting, «If you actually think that an idea as painstakingly idiotic as that one is going to succeed, you're much stupider than I originally perceived, and even if you repeatedly smashed your cranium against a stone wall I doubt you would lose any thinkpan cells be-»

John ripped the paper from Karkat's hands, refusing to allow him to get on yet another long rant. He had heard, or well, read, enough of those for a lifetime. «I get it,» He underlined those words dramatically for effect. «You think I'm stupid, you don't have to repeat it anymore, alright? What do you propose we do, because as of now this song sounds like shit, and you're not doing anything to make it sound better.»

«I don't need to do a fucking thing to make it sound better! I'm singing it the proper way it's supposed to be sung, and you're just playing it like it's some stupid fucking fairy princess music! It only sounds like shit because you're a piece of shit musician who doesn't know how to pound down on a piano.» Karkat began writing it quickly, then halfway through pauses, beating the pen down on paper for a second, in thought, then continues writing quickly. 

"Agh!" John exclaimed, unceremoniously crashing his keys and forehead down on keys. They were getting nowhere. Nowhere. 

The troll stepped over, and used one hand to grip the humans neck, putting just a bit too much pressure on as he lifted John's head from the keyboard. John winced and let out a sound of pain, feeling his muscles tense. As his head was forced upward, his eyes connected with yellow ones suddenly, the shade and lack of dilation hard and painful. Karkat's face was tense, his eyebrows knit with anger and something else… confusion? Before John could understand it, Karkat was ramming his face back into the keyboard, hard, and was out of the room. John just hoped that there were no key-shaped bruises marking his face.

☭

«I think I've understood the root of your stupidity apart from the lack of potential to retain intelligence that your wax-filled think pan holds. You don't understand the nature of this music. Have you done any research on it?» After the 17th round of singing, and only three rehearsals left, Karkat dropped a note of paper in John's lap.

«Research? It's a fucking song, Karkat.» John wrote back. Then he motioned, and began playing the introduction again. 

Karkat walked beside John, and clashed his own fingers on the piano, playing a mess of notes. John carefully removed his fingers from the keys, trying to not scream in anger at the troll. Deep breaths, deep breaths. He slowly turned his attention up to Karkat, knowing the hatred pouring from his eyes. Karkat took the paper from the piano, and wrote on it slowly, taking his dear sweet time. «You don't know what you're playing, do you? You uncultured idiot, you don't know the fucking point of the song, what it's even saying, I can't under-» 

John ripped the paper from Karkat's hands, barely looking at it before setting it back down on the piano, and beginning to play again. 

Growling, the troll picked it up again, starting to write once more. «You're fucking playing it wrong, how many times do I need to tell you! It's an Alternian song, not one of your disgusting pretty powerless Earth bal-»

John didn't care to look at the sheet as he paused his playing to take the paper from Karkat's grubby little hands; he set it back on the piano, and continued the song where he left off.

Now, Karkat muttered a few words of frustration out into the air, and stepped back to his place beside the piano. He didn't care to look at the sheet of paper, knowing the human was too fucking stupid and ignorant to even listen, or read, whatever Karkat was saying. He began to sing when his part came in, but, it just sounded so wrong! The human played every note with this happy, jumpy air, like it was a song played in a joyful happy cafe on a warm summer evening. It was disgusting, too happy, too peppy. Karkat's voice broke into how happy it was, dreary with chest resonators.

Their sound, their moods, apart they were perfect, but together, they clashed too much, creating a horribly ugly sound. This couldn't work, there was no way. They were just too different. But Karkat had a goal. This human, this gross, stubborn, douchey human. He could change him. Morph him to what he wanted, he would make his sound as dark and dismal as troll music was. 

But the human wouldn't budge. He was so happy, kept his head up too well. Anyone else would've backed out, especially with all of Karkat's hidden black advances, but still, the dense human just didn't get it. They played through the song, it only sounding worse and worse with each note, until they ended with a dramatic flourish that fell over on itself hopelessly.

John sighed at the ugly noise, "This is horrible," he stated, tinkering a key.

Karkat continued to mumble and growl. He then lifted up the pen, and turned the sheet of paper around, writing on it. 

«It's a romantic song about a pair of kismesis, one of whom is going off to war. This is the other voicing their hatred of the other, and wishing them to return from battle safety.» It was actually quite a romantic song, Karkat thought. 

John barely spared the paper a glance, obviously not reading it, as he shuffled through sheet music. Karkat tapped the paper impatiently. John looked at him, rolled his eyes, and replayed a few bars of music he had been having trouble on, ignoring Karkat entirely. 

Karkat wanted to see him crash, he wanted to see the dumb human entirely a mess, and playing what Karkat wanted, exactly how Karkat wanted it, and not enjoying it at all. He wanted to see John in mental pain, entirely under the troll's control. Not a human, a troll. The more powerful. At last, in a situation, was Karkat the more powerful one. As long as the human would get his defenses down!

John began at the introduction again, his ignorance and frustration bleeding through into the music. His fingers beat harder at the keys, his tone deepening. The space between notes was not silent, but waiting, in preparation to something. 

And then Karkat's voice came in, rasping and choking, then switching randomly to high and smooth. It replaced those empty spots with something, with a presence that made itself known, shoving John's voice down to background music. 

John hit the keys harder, loudening his noise. He would be heard, much more than Karkat. Higher. This was his song, not the troll's. His music, his way, his direction. Karkat's voice only got louder, and John rose to stand, so he could put more strength into the pressure that he hit the keys. The piano was now howling loudly and painfully, and the troll was almost screaming just to be heard.

With claws drawn, the troll's voice ceased unplanned, and those sharp claws were suddenly digging into the human's jacket, leaving small holes in the fabric. Their faces are mashed together, noses pressed against the other, teeth biting. Their lips barely met, except for a rude fang biting into John's mouth, and a large front tooth slicing into grey lips. John made muffled panting sounds, his legs pressing painfully into the piano. It was more sharp points and hard sucking than a kiss, but they both got the idea, especially as John was shoved back into the piano bench with a whimper. Karkat slides the sleeve of his jacket over his mouth, red blood trickling from his lip. John ignores the metallic blood taste in his mouth as he stabilized himself on the seat, fingers gliding over the keyboard. 

They played the song ten more times that day.

☭

An empty sheet of paper lied on the piano. Forgotten sheet music pages that hadn't been turned since they played the piece for the second time. The last rehearsal before a performance is standardly one filled of stress and fear. Fear that it'll go wrong, fear you haven't practiced enough, fear you've practiced too much, fear the other will fuck up, and the overwhelming fear that you sound stupid.

There was none of that, though. No fear, no stress, no thoughts of doing it wrong, no thoughts of doing it right. Only hope to do better than the other. Smiles at small victories, cheers at mixing notes. Growls of anger when being surpassed, rising music. 

The only words that have echoed in the room is the musical notes that ring from Karkat's mouth. He barely had to try to switch from chest to mask to head to throat resonators, his voice would smoothly flow from voice to voice with the notes. The words lost their meaning, he stretched sounds that needed not be stretched, shortened notes that needed not be shortened. Had John been using the sheet music, he'd have filled the page with changes they'd made to the music, crescendos and trills added, resonators changed, mood altered. They'd even changed the score once or twice, upped the speed, darkened tones. It barely was the music assigned previously, they'd changed it to such an extent. They hadn't morphed each other to the music, changed each other's playing styles to fit their partner. In turn, they'd changed the music, made it work with them. 

John closed the sheet music, unspoken words registered by Karkat as he rose. He flashed his smile, teeth poking out. He stepped from behind the piano bench, sheet music tucked under his arm.

☭

There were sweeping ball gowns and cheering men. Rosy flushed faces from alcohol, smiles plastered on them. Colors mixed into the room, none of them John's color. As much blue as John wore, as much as he insisted green was his favorite color, he was red. Red, red, blood.

Karkat was red, too. His blood was red. With another red person by his side, though he wasn't even human, John felt as if he could conquer the world. John and Karkat, they really weren't all that different. They spoke different languages, played different instruments, were different species. But they both were stubborn, they both had the same laugh, and they both were very, very, stupid. And they wouldn't have had it any other way. 

They stepped onto the stage, papers rustling as the band before them got up to leave, but John and Karkat set no papers down. They did not bow, they did not look at the audience. 

They played their hearts out. 

As they depart the stage, no bows, just a short meeting of lips, neither hear the applause rippling through the hall.

**Author's Note:**

> welp got that over with. damn. and finally, i post the johnkats. thanks, saint-joy, for editing this and stuff. *chu*


End file.
